Experts in the Field

In this episode I am speaking with Sir Robin Murray. Robin is a Professor of Psychiatric Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London.  Since qualifying in the 1960s he has made essential contributions to the way in which we understand and treat people experiencing psychosis, specifically schizophrenia. He is drawn to challenging the unorthodoxy of his discipline and does so with rigorous inquiry and an unwavering emphasis on patient wellbeing. Robin was recently named the 2020 recipient of the Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) Lifetime Achievement Award.  He has served as dean of the Institute of Psychiatry and is a key part of its Psychosis Research Group which, by some estimations, is the largest in the world. His work has been cited over one hundred thousand times and, according to Google Citations public profiles, his h-index is higher than that or either Noam Chomsky or Karl Marx! During the interview we cover how he was first drawn to the field of mental health, the pitfalls of wrong interpretations of ever improving sources of data (specifically neuroimaging data on brain changes in schizophrenic patients), his hopes for reforms in psychiatric practice and the essential role of public health programmes in improving understanding and informing choice around mental health issues. You can find Robin's profile here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/professor-sir-robin-murray The music on this podcast comes from a mental health awareness track by one of our HELP University undergraduate students and can be heard in full here.  Thanks Eugene.

In this episode I am speaking with Professor Colin Espie. Colin is Professor of Sleep Medicine in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford. He founded the Experimental & Clinical Sleep Medicine research programme in the Sleep & Circadian Research Institute and is the Clinical Director of the Oxford Online Programme in Sleep. Colin is a Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow in the University Department of Psychiatry. Colin’s expertise and research around sleep is impressive to say the least. His influence on the field of sleep research, particularly the treatment of sleep disorders with Cognitive Behavioural approaches is exceptional both in terms of academic output and getting sleep science to the masses. In addition to authoring hundreds of academic papers and books, he’s the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Sleep and Sleep Disorders and – as he mentions during the interview plays an essential role in writing the insomnia section of the International Classification of Diseases. He was awarded the Mary A. Carskadon Outstanding Educator Award by the Sleep Research Society in 2017, and is the co-founder of Big Health, an academic-start-up hybrid that creates digital mental health solutions with the highest standards of clinical evidence. We talk about all of these activities, starting from Colin’s early days as a pioneer in behavioural treatments for insomnia right through to Big Health’s free provision of their mental health apps to frontline healthcare workers and what we can all do to improve our sleep during these times of pandemic, extra worry, and upended lifestyles. You can learn more about Colin's work here: https://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/team/colin-espie Find more about Big Health here: https://www.bighealth.com/ And Sleepio here: https://www.sleepio.com/ The music on this podcast comes from a mental health awareness track by one of our HELP University first year students and can be heard in full here.  Thanks Eugene.

This is an interview with Dr Junlei Li, the Saul Zaentz senior lecturer in early childhood education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Junlei’s work emphasises developmental relationships as the ‘active ingredient’ for children and young people to thrive. As he points out in this recent Zero to Three article a disproportionate valuing of material resources, particularly in impoverished neighbourhoods and parts of the world, risks undermining the essential human elements of human interactions. Junlei’s research in a range of low resource but high quality developmental settings, including orphanages and classrooms, led to the development of the Simple Interactions approach. In essence Simple Interactions recognises and builds on what people in difficult circumstances do naturally well. The interview also covers: Developmental relationships and attachment, the concepts of ‘positive deviance’ and ‘deep and simple’ (with reference to Mister Rogers!), some thoughts on the covid-19 pandemic and the related risk of misinformation overload. You can learn more about Junlei's work here: https://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty/junlei-li And find more about the Simple Interactions approach here: https://www.simpleinteractions.org/ The music on this podcast comes from a mental health awareness track by one of our HELP University first year students and can be heard in full here.  Thanks Eugene.

This is an interview with Dr Erik Kuhn, co-chair of the Stanford Mental Health Technology and Innovation Hub, clinical psychologist and intervention developer at the US Department of Veterans Affairs National Centre for PTSD.  Eric and his team have created a suite of mental health apps, including PTSD Coach. Our conversation centres on PTSD Coach and includes a range of related topics including uptake of digital interventions, the strong evidence base for this sort of self-help tool, and how it relates to use of other interventions and access to formal treatment. We also discuss some of the ongoing issues around Covid-19 and Eric mentions a related 'secret' project... COVID Coach has since been granted White House approval and is now available on the app store here (available on Android soon) Caveat: This interview was initially intended just for students on a HELP University undergraduate psychology course (PSY347: The Science of Mental Health and Wellbeing), but we thought it might be of wider interest.   We hope this contextualises the focus (and assumption of familiarity with the target study, which can be found here) and excuses the production quality. You can learn more about Eric's work here: https://www.ptsd.va.gov/about/divisions/dissemination/kuhn_e.asp And find links to the suite of (free) VA MH Apps here:https://www.ptsd.va.gov/appvid/mobile/index.asp Weblink for Stanford Mental Health Technology and Innovation Hub is here https://www.stanfordmhtech.com/about The music on this podcast comes from a mental health awareness track by one of our HELP University first year students and can be heard in full here.  Thanks Eugene.